Cannabis Rescheduling: Record 43,000 Public Comments Submitted To The DEA
Americans Speak Out: 43,000 Comments Flood DEA on Cannabis Rescheduling.
If you want to know what democracy looks like, go read some of the 43,000 public comments on the proposed federal government rule change to place cannabis in Schedule 3 of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). You may recall that the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is studying a proposed rule change to move cannabis from Schedule 1 (no medical value, high potential for abuse) to Schedule 3 (some medical value, some potential for abuse) in the CSA. The public comment period for this rule change recently ended on July 22.
What you’ll find in the comments is a chorus of different American voices weighing in on a public policy that’s important to them. Some of the comments are short and to the point, others are longer with footnotes and bibliographies. Some are written by regular folks and others are submitted by attorneys or policy experts.
The DEA has never received so many comments on a rule change. Ever. Cannabis policy is something Americans clearly feel strongly about. Cannabis Business Times analyzed the results of the comments: 69.3%, or 29,750 of comments submitted, support descheduling, decriminalizing, or legalizing marijuana at the federal level. This is an overwhelming majority of citizens who want cannabis to be removed from the CSA entirely.
I sorted through all the government guidelines for submitting a comment. The guidelines encouraged original comments (not form letters) that have a personal angle (i.e., how has the current policy impacted you or your family?) and address areas like economic and social impact of the policy.
Like everyone submitting a comment, I had to consider what strategic approach to take. The arguments for removing cannabis from the CSA entirely are too numerous to make in one comment. The same dynamic holds true for those who submitted comments that support continued prohibition. Choices have to be made when one is making an argument to the government.
I decided to make an “original sin” argument for my comment, asserting that cannabis never should have been included in the CSA to begin with. I tried to include documentation supporting my argument (the Shafer Commission Report) while remaining concise (one of the guidelines) and not overdoing it. I ran into the problem of a character limit on the government web portal but I also saw longer comments so there must have been a workaround that I never figured out.
You can read an edited and linked (instead of footnotes) version of my comment below:
The classification of cannabis as a Schedule 1 drug under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) of 1970 was arguably an error made by Congress under the Nixon Administration. Its public policy of total prohibition may have resulted in a tremendous waste of financial resources in the prosecution and mass incarceration of otherwise-law-abiding citizens. Further, the prohibition of cannabis has arguably stymied the potential for this nation to be on the forefront of research and innovation in cannabis medicine and therapeutics, resulting in potential lost opportunities for economic stimulus to the United States and lost opportunity for improved health outcomes in our population.
The current effort to review the potential rescheduling of cannabis under the CSA, actually presents an opportunity for the DEA to correct a possible legislative error of classifying cannabis in the CSA schedule in the first place, by descheduling cannabis entirely.
As mandated by Section 601 of Public Law 91-513, The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, the government's own commission appointed by President Nixon to study the harms of cannabis in society, National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse (commonly known as ‘the Shafer Commission’), testified to Congress that cannabis should not be scheduled and should be decriminalized.
The Shafer Commission Report, “Marihuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding,” was just one of a series of reports over numerous decades that various government bodies issued after exhaustive reviews of the evidence available to them. Each report concluded cannabis was not a threat to public health or safety. All of these reports and their supporting documentation were available to the government at the time cannabis was put into Schedule 1 status.
The Schedule 1 decision arguably was not based on available science or expert testimony but on political and racial bias during the 1960s and ‘70s. Surviving members of the Nixon administration have gone on public record confirming that political and racial bias was the driver for cannabis being placed in Schedule 1, not public health or safety.
When key executive branch officials who helped create the CSA 50 years ago are now condemning the scheduling of cannabis within that framework, it is essential to reconsider the original classification as part of the current review. This is particularly true when the general public also feels strongly that federal cannabis prohibition and scheduling should end.
My own family experienced the impact of Schedule 1 status in 1976, just a few years after the CSA became law. My brother Steve was incarcerated on a federal cannabis possession conviction. Steve was 18 at the time and I was 9 years old. I vividly remember visiting him in prison, being bullied at school because he was in jail, and being confused by this action against my brother, whom I knew to be a good person who did not hurt anyone.
That experience motivated both of us to work on this issue as adults. Steve and I have since dedicated our lives to learning everything we could about cannabis as an industrial raw material and as a medicine. In the 1990s, we started one of the first hemp clothing companies in the United States called Ecolution. Steve and I were also awarded one of the first licenses by any municipality to dispense medical cannabis legally in 2006 (Oakland, Calif.). We opened Harborside Health Center and later, Steep Hill Labs. This was the first lab to test cannabis for molds and pathogens and present results to patients. We pioneered many other initiatives in California designed to help patients learn more about cannabis medicine and increase their access to it.
The current generation of administrators at the Drug Enforcement Administration has an opportunity to correct the harms of the past and understand that the inclusion of cannabis in the CSA should never have occurred in 1970, particularly in light of the findings of the Shafer Commission, whose CSA-mandated research and evaluation suggested a policy of full decriminalization. Those findings were clearly intended to be followed by Congress and the executive branch. They were not.
There is substantial content and evidence addressing the economic and societal impact of the current federal policy over the last 50 years. Mass incarceration was and is the end result of the inclusion of cannabis in the CSA. Families like mine feel the impact of the law and classification the most. The Shafer Commission was clear in its conclusion that cannabis should be decriminalized and, therefore, no one should be imprisoned for cannabis offenses.
The missed economic opportunities due to the prohibition of cannabis and hemp may also be strong evidence that the Schedule 1 status was harmful to Americans. The state level licensed cannabis industry currently employs 600,000 Americans and creates billions of dollars of annual economic activity in states that have legal frameworks. By this math alone, the lost economic opportunity by placing cannabis in the CSA could credibly add up to trillions of dollars over the last 50 years.
The current rule change being considered of shifting cannabis into Schedule 3 status ignores the original error of including cannabis in the CSA framework to begin with. It is time for the federal government to follow the findings of the Shafer Commission and decriminalize and deschedule cannabis.
That was my comment and only one of the 43,000 submitted. While I’m advocating for a particular outcome in the review, I tried to follow the guidelines so the comment would be taken seriously. I supported my argument with documentation. I included a personal story of how prohibition has impacted my family. Most of the other comments I read were trying to form a strategic argument that was also personal and addressed larger effects on society. It was impactful to bear witness to all these comments and the care by which 43,000 Americans made their voices heard.
The big question on everyone’s mind is, will the DEA and the federal government listen to the people? Will democracy prevail or will the status quo of prohibition remain after the comments are reviewed by the DEA? It’s a complicated process that may involve litigation and numerous twists and turns before a final decision is made. Make no mistake about this though, cannabis policy can be changed at any time with enough will from the federal government. To date, that impetus simply has not been there. Maybe 43,000 comments will change that. Only time will tell.
